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AUTHOR: 


YEAMES,  H.  H. 


TITLE: 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL 


PLACE: 

S.L 

DA  TE : 

[1912] 


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Yeames,  H.  H. 

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On  teaching  VirgilJ:! 

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ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL 


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H.  H.  YEAMES 


Reprinted  for  private  drculation  from 
The  School  Review,  Vol.  XX,  No.  i,  January  191 2 


r. 


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THE   SCHOOL  REVIEW 

A  JOURNAL  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 


VOLUME  XX 
NUMBER  I 


JANUARY,  1912 


WHOLE   . 
NUMBER   191 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL' 


H.  H.  YEAMES 
Hobart  College,  Geneva,  New  York 


0  degli  altri  poeti  onore  e  lumcj 

vagliami  il  lungo  sttidio  e  il  grande  amore 
che  mi  ha  fcUto  cercar  to  tuo  volume, 

—Dante,  Inferno^  I,  %^, 

Culture  is  like  religion,  a  thing  about  which  one  should  not  be 
dogmatic.  Both  words  have  been  much  abused:  the  scomers  of 
the  one  thing,  like  the  professors  of  the  other,  have  too  often  thought 
they  have  to  do  merely  with  externals— a  form  of  observance,  a 
mode  of  speech,  an  attitude  of  mind.  In  reality,  one  like  the  other 
lies  at  the  very  heart  of  life  and  feeds  the  springs  of  character  itself. 
It  is  a  still,  small  voice  not  to  be  heard  in  the  din  of  the  market- 
place, a  fragrant  flower  that  cannot  bloom  in  traflSc-trodden  ways. 
It  is  one  of  those  greatest  things  more  real  for  their  indefiniteness 
and  intangibility,  more  potent  for  their  very  lack  of  show  and 
noise. 

The  cultivated  man  is  not  merely  the  gentleman  of  taste  and 
refinement,  with  intellectual  resources  to  occupy  his  leisure  hours, 
but  the  "humane"  man,  the  highest  development  of  the  human 
being,  because  his  outlook  upon  Kfe  is  broader,  his  sympathy  is 
deeper,  his  interest  in  what  men  are  doing  now  is  more  enlightened, 

« A  paper  read,  in  part,  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  New  York  State  Classical 
Teachers'  Association  at  Syraciise,  December  30,  19 10. 

z 


THE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 


for  his  understanding  of  what  men  have  thought  and  said  and  done 
in  the  past.  Literature  is  the  worthy  record  of  what  men  have 
thought  and  said  and  done  in  the  past.  It  forms  therefore  the 
chief  element  of  culture,  the  chief  subject  of  education. 

For  culture  is  the  true  end  of  higher  education — culture,  and 
not  practical  efficiency :  that  is  the  ideal  of  technical  or  professional 
training.  Lovers  of  literature,  needless  to  say,  hold  culture  to  be 
not  only  the  broadest  but  also  the  surest  foundation  for  the  highest 
type  of  efficiency;  they  hold  that  vision  should  precede  service,  and 
that  **  where  there  is  no  vision  the  people  perish." 

One  cannot  answer  those  who  do  not  agree  with  this  ideal: 
he  would  be  speaking  in  an  unknown  tongue.  Such  extravagant 
attacks  upon  the  classics  as  are  made  by  a  college  professor  in  a 
recent  number  of  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  call  for  no  rejoinder, 
because  the  writer  shows  himself  beforehand  temperamentally 
incapable  of  understanding  the  other  side.  We  have  to  let  such 
words  pass — non  ragionam  di  lor^  ma  guarda  e  passa — regretting 
only  that  a  serious  journal  should  choose  to  print  them.  Would 
it  print  (let  us  suggest)  an  equally  sincere  plea  from  a  student  of 
literature  with  no  taste  for  scientffic  studies,  and  therefore  no 
sympathy  with  them,  who  nevertheless  felt  called  upon  to  assert 
that  science  is  without  educational  value  ?  Sympathy  and  under- 
standing are  the  very  prerequisites  for  any  just  judgment.  He 
who,  lacking  these,  sets  himself  up  for  a  critic  provokes  retort  in 
Horace's  pithy  and  pregnant  phrase,  Lucum  ligna  putas.  When  a 
man  has  eyes  only  for  firewood  or  marketable  timber,  he  will  feel 
contempt  rather  than  admiration  for  the  sacred  grove  with  the 
mystery  and  beauty  of  its  inviolable  trees.  No  argument  will 
purge  such  blear-eyed  vision:  it  needs  collyrium;  or  is  it  hellebore  ? 

As  to  the  old  and  outgrown  quarrel  of  modern  versus  ancient 
languages,  which  this  same  writer  tries  to  pick  up  again — here  he 
may  be  answered.  The  scholar  whose  work  lies  in  modem  lan- 
guages will  be  the  first  to  grant  that  no  adequate  knowledge  of 
his  subject  is  possible  without  some  acquaintance  with  the  linguistic 
and  literary  sources.  Modem  literature  is  unintelligible  without 
Greece,  modern  language  is  inexplicable  without  Rome.  Trans- 
lation, we  are  told,  will  suffice  to  give  acquaintance  with  ancient 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL  3 

literature,  at  least;  but  how  much  more  true  this  is  of  modem 
literature!  English  versions  of  French  and  German  classics  are 
far  more  satisfactory  than  translations  from  Greek  and  Latin, 
because  modern  modes  of  thought  and  expression,  and  modem 
verse-forms  have  much  in  common;  whereas  no  ancient  poet  has 
been  rendered  in  a  way  to  satisfy  those  who  know  him.  Each 
fresh  attempt  recalls  Bentley's  alleged  remark  on  Pope's  Iliad:  ''A 
pretty  poem,  Mr.  Pope,  but  you  must  not  call  it  Homer."  Much 
as  we  admire  or  enjoy  such  translators  of  Virgil  as  Dryden,  Coning- 
ton,  Fairfax-Taylor,  or  Mr.  Theodore  Williams,  no  one  of  them, 
nor  all  together,  can  more  than  suggest  his  essential  quality:  his 
magic  remains  incommunicable.  If  one  must  get  great  literature 
through  the  unsatisfying  medium  of  translation,  it  is  far  better 
that  the  modern  literatures  should  come  to  him  that  way;  both 
because  they  are  essentially  less  great  than  the  ancient,  and 
because  translators  can  do  them  greater  justice.  I  cannot  help 
adding  that  the  classicist  is  more  likely  to  have  a  fair  reading- 
knowledge  of  modern  languages,  a  fair  acquaintance  with  modern 
literatures,  than  is  the  modernist  to  have  first-hand  acquaintance 
with  the  classics. 

This,  however,  is  an  aside.  Any  definition  of  culture,  however 
undogmatic,  will  include  some  knowledge  of  literature  and  some 
appreciation  of  poetry,  the  consummate  flower  of  literature.  Next 
to  our  own  English  literature  in  richness  and  value  to  us  is  that  of 
the  ancient  world,  those  books  which  men  have  agreed  to  call  the 
Classics;  and  among  these  Virgil  occupies  a  unique  and  for  us  a 
pre-eminently  important  place— a  position  in  no  way  affected  by 
the  general  superiority  of  Greek  over  Roman  literature.  He 
remains  one  of  the  few  books,  like  the  Bible,  Shakespeare,  Homer, 
Plato,  and  Dante,  indispensable  to  culture  in  even  the  narrowest 
conception  of  it. 

The  reasons  for  this  high  eminence  are  various.  In  the  first 
place,  he  at  once  became  a  classic  and  accordingly  a  model  for 
study  in  school.  It  was  probably  in  his  lifetime  that  Caedlius 
Epirota,  "fond  nurse  of  tender  bardlings"  (tenellorum  nutricula 
vatuniy  as  Domitius  Marsus  called  him),  began  to  teach  his  poems.' 

*  Suet.  De  gram.  16. 


4  THE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 

And  this  position  he  has  held  ever  since,  in  one  unbroken  tradition 
coming  down  through  the  Middle  Ages — ^in  whose  darkness  he  was 
almost  the  only  hght — to  our  own  day  and  to  us  penitus  toto  divisos 
orbe,^  To  the  dominion  of  his  poems  the  gods  have  set  no  bounds 
of  space  or  time: 

his  ego  nee  metas  rerum  nee  tempora  pono, 
imj)eriiim  sine  fine  dedi.» 

The  signs  of  the  times  seem  to  promise  an  increase  rather  than  any 
decline  of  interest  in  Virgil.  His  place  in  the  curriculum  would 
therefore  seem  secure,  and  the  service  he  is  destined  to  render  to 
countless  generations  still  is  no  less  than  that  he  has  performed  for 
the  nineteen  centuries  past.  The  loving  study  of  such  a  poet  is  in 
itself  a  Uberal  education. 

His  position  in  the  schools  is  due,  of  course,  not  to  the  influence 
of  schoolmasters,  but  to  his  recognized  rank  in  Uterature.  He  is  in 
a  sense  the  first  of  modem  poets  and  the  last  of  the  great  ancients; 
he  stands  alone  on  the  height  which  divides  and  yet  unites  the  old 
and  the  new  worlds.  All  the  streams  of  ancient  song  are  tributary 
to  his  genius,  and  his  own  poetry  is  the  fountain-head  of  many  a 
river  that  has  refreshed  European  lands.  He  enshrined  in  imperish- 
able verse  the  great  ideals  of  a  great  civilization;  he  was  not  only 
the  poet  of  a  great  epoch,  but  also  an  epoch-making  poet.  In 
him  the  Graeco-Roman  civilization  found  its  truest  interpreter, 
and  chiefly  through  him  handed  down  its  legacy  of  inspiration  to 
the  modem  world.  "He  is  the  great  mediator  between  antiquity 
and  Christendom;  he  maintained  in  poetry  equally  with  Plato  in 
philosophy  the  imbroken  continuity  of  the  human  spirit,"  says 
Professor  Woodberry,^  in  words  that  suggest  the  phrase  of  the 
Emperor  Alexander  Severus,  who  called  Virgil "  the  Plato  of  poets,"^ 

It  is  not  easy  to  recall  any  great  poet  since  Virgil's  day  who  has 
not  caught  some  inspiration  from  him;  and  if  the  future  has  great 
poets  in  store,  his  torch  will  be  passed  on  from  hand  to  hand,  the 

'jEc.  1. 67.  »i4e».  I.  279. 

3  Essay  on  Virgil,  in  GrecU  Writers. 

4  '*  Vergilium  autem  Platonem  poetarum  vocabat  ejusque  imaginem  cum  Ciceronis 
simulacro  in  secimdo  larario  habnit"  {Lampridius  31).  Of  Virgil  and  Plato  the 
same  legend  is  related,  how  bees  settled  on  their  infant  lips. 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL  5 

royal  Virgilian  line  will  "stretch  out  to  the  crack  of  doom.'*  And 
what  a  line  it  is!  Lucan  and  Statins,  Dante  and  Tasso,  Spenser 
and  Milton,  Dryden  and  Pope,  Wordsworth  and  Tennyson  are 
only  a  few  among  his  disciples.  He  is  like  his  own  oak  tree,  stand- 
ing unmoved  by  time  or  storm,  with  roots  drawing  nurture  from  all 
that  is  best  in  the  past,  with  branches  outspread  in  every  direction  to 
the  upper  air  and  bearing  leaves  "for  the  healing  of  the  nations": 

quantum  vertice  ad  auras 
aetherias,  tantum  radice  in  Tartara  tendit. 
ergo  non  hiemes  illam,  non  flabra  neque  imbres 
convellunt;  inmota  manet,  multosque  nepotes, 
multa  vinim  volvens  durando  saecula  vincit. 
tunc  fortis  late  ramos  et  bracchia  tendens 
hue  illuc,  media  ipsa  ingentem  sustinet  umbram.* 

Poetry  can  never  outgrow  his  influence;  in  fact,  such  influence  is  a 
stream  which  deepens  though  diffused,  fed  by  the  showers  and 
tributary  springs.    As  Pope  sings  in  Virgilian  strains: 

Still  green  with  bays  each  ancient  altar  stands, 

Above  the  reach  of  sacrilegious  hands; 

Secure  from  flames,  from  envy's  fiercer  rage, 

Destructive  war  and  all-involving  age. 

See,  from  each  clime  the  learned  their  incense  bring! 

Hear,  in  all  tongues  consenting  paeans  ring! 

Hail,  bards  triumphant,  bom  in  happier  days, 

Immortal  heirs  of  imiversal  praise! 

Whose  honors  with  increase  of  ages  grow. 

As  streams  roll  down,  enlarging  as  they  flow.' 

Virgilian  accents,  but  "oh,  how  frail  to  that  large  utterance  of  the 
early  gods!" — magnanimi  heroes,  nati  meliorihus  annis. 

But  it  is  not  poets  only  who  have  felt  his  influence:  his  impress 
is  on  great  men  of  every  sort,  of  every  land  and  time,  and  on  great 
movements  too.  It  would  be  hard  to  overestimate  the  influence  on 
Christian  thought  of  the  sixth  book  of  the  Aeneid.  The  mysterious 
fourth  Eclogue  has  had  more  effect  on  men's  minds  than  any  other 
short  poem  ever  written.  According  to  Eusebius,  who  ought  to 
know,  it  was  instrumental  in  the  conversion  of  the  Emperor  Con- 
stantine,  and  Gibbon  with  customary  irony  suggests  that  "Virgil 
may  deserve  to  be  ranked  among  the  most  successful  missionaries 

'  Georg.  2,  291.  >  Essay  on  CrUicism,  181. 


THE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 


of  the  Gospel."^    Part  of  Pope's  sonorous  paraphrase  retains  a 

place  in  our  hymnbooks,  and  is  sung  at  the  Christmas  season  in 

many  a  Christian  church' — a  vmique  tribute  to  a  pagan  poet,  sole 

survival  of  that  mediaeval  regard  for  Virgil  as  a  prophet  and  almost 

a  Christian,  in  Dante's  memorable  words,  "as  one  who  goes  by 

night  and  carries  the  Kght  behind  him,  and  profits  not  himself, 

but  after  him  makes  men  wise."^     This  feeling  culminated  in  the 

legend  of  St.  Paul's  visit  to  the  tomb  of  Virgil  on  Posilippo  hill,  after 

his  landing  at  Puteoli.     In  the  often-quoted  words  of  a  hymn  sung 

as  late  as  the  fifteenth  century: 

Ad  Maronis  mausoleum 
ductus,  fudit  super  eum 

piae  rorem  lacrimae; 
quem  te  (inquit)  reddidissem, 
si  te  vivum  invenissem, 

poetarum  maxime.^ 

'  A  legend  this,  but  suggestive  of  what  is  profoundly  true — the  inti- 
mate connection  between  Virgil's  teaching  and  Christian  thought: 
our  poet  has  his  place  among  the  Fathers. 

The  vision  of  a  universal  empire  of  righteousness  and  peace 
uniting  all  nations  in  one  ideal  was  conceived  by  Virgil  and  given 
imperishable  form.  This  great  conception  has  been  as  potent  as 
any  human  thought — far  more  potent,  for  instance,  than  the 
magnificent  abstractions  of  Plato's  Republic,  great  as  the  influence 
of  that  book  has  been  on  men's  minds — and  has  helped  to  shape 
such  vast  historic  structures  as  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  and  the 
Holy  CathoUc  Church.  The  poet  who  could  give  voice  to  such  an 
ideal,  in  strains  of  the  noblest  poetry  ever  written,  combining  the 
beauty  and  finish  of  Greek  art  with  the  martial  stateliness  of  the 
Roman  genius,  pre-eminent  in  war  and  law,  and  with  something 
of  the  moral  fervor  of  Hebrew  prophecy,  is  certainly  one  of  the 

« Of  alio  Constantinif  chaps.  19-21.    Vide  Sainte-Beuve,  Portraits  litUraires,  t.  Ill, 
"  Virgile  et  Constantin  le  grand";  and  Gibbon's  Decline  and  FaU,  chap.  20. 
»  "Rise,  crowned  with  light,"  etc. 

^Purg.  22,  67: 

facesti  come  quei  che  va  di  notte, 
die  porta  il  lume  retro  e  s6  non  giova, 
ma  dopo  sh  fa  le  persone  dotte. 

4  Comparetti,  Vergil  in  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  98. 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL  7 

world's  great  poets.  No  wonder  that  Augustine,  the  author  of 
De  civitate  dei,  felt  such  passionate  love  for  him;  or  that  Dante,  the 
author  of  the  De  monarchia,  with  a  reverence  that  was  almost  wor- 
ship, acknowledged  him  as  his  master  in  his  own  great  poem,  which 
marks  the  awakening  of  the  modern  world  and  enshrines  forever 
the  faith  of  the  Middle  Ages.  "Apollo  and  Neptune  (says  Horace 
in  one  of  Landor's  Imaginary  Conversations)  by  their  united  power 
raised  the  walls  of  Troy;  Virgilius  single-handed  will  have  raised 
an  imperishable  Rome." 

Virgil's  ''image  and  superscription"  are  stamped  on  so  many 
minds,  not  merely  because  he  has  always  been  studied  at  school, 
but  because  his  verse  is  of  a  sort  that  one  must  needs  love  as  well 
as  admire.  So  it  happens  that  Virgilian  words,  phrases,  and  lines 
have  become,  more  than  any  other  poet's,  "the  chosen  coin  of 
fancy,"  rich  in  accumulated  association.  Sainte-Beuve  in  his 
delightful  way  suggests  that  some  editor  should  do  for  Virgil  what 
has  been  done  for  Homer,  point  out  the  memorable  occasions  in 
which  his  verses  have  played  a  part  by  means  of  some  happy  allu- 
sion or  citation— "a  pretty  chapter  of  VirgiHan  amenities."^  We 
wish  that  he  had  lived  to  write  this  chapter.  Here  I  can  only 
suggest,  in  the  hastiest  way,  a  fraction  of  what  it  might  contain. 

Such  allusions  range  all  the  way  from  the  motto  of  one  of  our 
very  newest  states  (Oklahoma)— /a^>(?r  omnia  vincit'—hsLck  through 
the  ages  to  the  admiring  and  conceited  exclamation  attributed  by 
an  impossible  fiction  to  Cicero  when  he  heard  one  of  the  Eclogues 
recited,  and  appropriated  by  Virgil  from  him— magnae  spes  altera 
Romue,^ 

The  infinite  pathos  of  Dido's  plaint— /w?c  solum  nomen  quoniam 
de  conjuge  restate— is  enhanced  when  we  learn  that  Virgil  himself 

'Nouveaux  lundis,  t.  XI,  "(Euvres  de  VirgUe":    Je  m'6tais  souvent  propose 
ce  joh  chapitre  d'am6nit6s  virgiliennes. 
*Georg.  I,  145. 

*Aen.  12,  168.  The  story  is  told  in  the  Life  attributed  to  Donatus,  41 :  ac  cum 
Cicero  quosdam  versus  audisset,  et  statim  acri  judicio  intellexisset  non  communi 
vena  editos,  jussit  ab  mitio  totam  Eclogam  recitari;  quae  cum  accurate  pemotasset, 
m  fine  ait,  magnae  spes  altera  Romae:  .quasi  ipse  linguae  Latinae  spes  prima  fuisset 
et  Maro  futunis  esset  secunda.    quae  verba  postea  Aeneidi  ipse  inseniit. 

<  Aen.  4,  324. 


a 


TEE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 


faltered  as  he  read  it.*    At  his  reading  with  such  wonderful  feeling 
and  charm  before  Augustus  and  his  sister  the  passage  about  young 
Marcellus— the  most  touching  lines  in  all  poetry— Octavia  fainted 
away.*    What  indignation  on  one  occasion  Augustus  put  mto  the 
great  line,  Romanos  rerum  dominos  gentemque  togatamP    Crazy 
Caligula  in  one  of  his  burlesque  campaigns  impersonated  Aeneas 
and  sacrilegiously  exhorted  his  men  with  durate  et  vosmet  rebus 
servate  secundis,^     To  Nero  in  his  craven  fear  of  death  one  of  his 
officers  flung  the  scornful  question,  usque  adeone  mori  miserum  est?^ 
—very  appropriate  to  one  who  had  vowed  that,  if  things  turned  out 
well,  he  would  dance  on  the  pubUc  stage  the  part  of  Tumus.^ 
Hadrian  used  to  say  of  the  ill-fated  Verus,  whom  he  had  adopted 
as  his  successor,  ostendent  terris  hunc  tantum  fata  J    Diocletian  as 
he  stabbed  the  prefect  Aper  to  enforce  his  claim  to  the  throne 
exclaimed,  gloriare,  Aper,  Aeneae  magni  dextra  cadis}    Clodius 
Albinus,  destined  to  be  the  unsuccessful  opponent  of  Septimius 
Severus,  was  fond  of  quoting  at  school,  arma  amens  capio,^ 

Virgil's  lines  are  equally  at  home  on  the  lips  of  Roman  emperors 
and  of  Christian  saints.  St.  Augustine  is  continually  quoting  him: 
how  he  repents  his  youthful  interest  in  the  wanderings  of  Aeneas, 
forgetful  of  his  own  wanderings  from  God;  his  tears  for  Dido  mstead 
of  for  his  own  sins,  and  all  the  lure  of  pagan  art,  from  which  the 
Christian  was  bound  to  fLet—atque  ipsius  umbra  Creusae!^''  Fenelon 
could  never  read  without  admiring  tears  the  noble  words: 

« Servius:  dicitur  autem  ingenti  adfectu  hos  versus  pronuntiasse,  cum  privatim 
paucis  praesentibus  recitaret  Augusto,  nam  recitavit  voce  optima. 

*Aen,  6,  883.  Donatus,  46:  tres  omnino  libros  recitavit:  secundum  videlicet, 
quartum,  et'sextum.  sed  hunc  praecipue  ob  Octaviam:  quae  cum  recitationi  inter- 
esset,  ad  Ulos  de  fiUo  suo  versus,  tu  Marcellus  eris,  defecisse  fertur;  atque  aegre  refocil- 
lata,  dena  sestertia  pro  singuio  versu  VergiUo  dari  jussit.  Cf .  43  '•  pronuntiabat  autem 
ami  suavitate  turn  lenociniis  miris. 

iAen,  I,  282;  Suet.  Aug.  40.  *Aen.  i,  207;  Suet.  Col.  45- 

s  Aen,  12,  646;  Suet.  Nero  47.  *  Suet.  Nero  54. 

'  Aen.  6,  870;  Life  of  Hdius,  by  Spartianus,  4. 

» Aen.  10,  830;  Life  of  Numerianus,  by  Vopiscus,  13. 

9  Aen.  2,  314;  Life,  by  Capitolinus,  5. 

«»Aen.  2,  772;  Confessions  i,  13:  tenere  cogebar  Aeneae  nesdo  cujus  errores, 
oblitus  errorum  meorum;  et  plorare  Didonem  mortuam,  quia  se  occidit  ob  amorem; 
cum  interea  meipsum  in  his  a  te  morientem,  Deus  vita  mea,  siccis  oculis  ferrem  miser- 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL  9 

aude,  hospes,  contemnere  opes  et  te  quoque  dignum 
finge  deo,  rebusque  veni  non  asper  egenis.' 

And  of  the  same  couplet  the  virile  Dryden  wrote:  *Tor  my  part, 
I  am  lost  in  the  admiration  of  it;  I  contemn  the  world  when  I  think 
of  it,  and  myself  when  I  translate  it.'*'  It  was  Virgil's  words  which 
sounded  in  the  ears  of  Savonarola,  leading  him  to  forsake  the  world 
for  a  life  of  religion :  heu,  fuge  crudelis  terras,  fuge  litus  avarum.^ 
And  Virgil's  was  the  line  simg  with  the  Benedictus  by  the  angel- 
choir  when  Paradise  opened  to  Dante's  raptured  vision:  tnanibus 
0  date  lilia  plenis.^ 

And  so  on  down  to  modem  times,  which  furnish  examples  as 
numerous.  How  often  in  British  statesmanship  have  Virgil's  lines 
played  a  part,  never  perhaps  more  impressively  than  when  Pitt, 
as  he  pleaded  for  the  abolition  of  African  slavery  till  morning 
light  streamed  through  the  windows  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
prophetically  cited  the  vivid  Unes: 

nos  ubi  primus  equis  Oriens  adflavit  anhelis, 
illic  sera  rubens  accendit  lumina  Vesper.s 

Then  there  is  the  curious  chronicle  of  the  sortes  Virgilianae, 
from  the  days  of  the  Roman  emperors  to  the  days  of  our  Puritan 
fathers.  From  these  yoimg  Hadrian  learned  that  he  was  missus 
in  imperium  magnum.^  Alexander  Severus,  consulting  Virgil  in 
the  temple  at  Praeneste,  when  Heliogabalus  was  plotting  against 
him,  received  the  doubtfid  response:  si  qua  fata  aspera  rumpas,  tu 
Marcellus  eris,"^  and  in  his  youth  his  future  rule  had  been  predicted, 

rimus.  quid  enim  miserius  misero,  non  miserante  seipsum;  et  flente  Didonis  mortem, 
quae  fiebat  amando  Aeneam;  non  flente  autem  mortem  suam,  quae  fiebat  non  amando 
te  ?  .  .  .  .  jam  vero  imimi  et  unum  duo,  duo  et  duo  quattuor,  odiosa  cantio  mihi 
erat;  et  dulcissimum  spectaculum  vanitatis,  equus  ligneus  plenus  armatis;  et  Trojae 
incendiimi,  atque  ipsius  umbra  Creusae. 

Men.  8,  364.  This  and  other  examples  are  cited  from  the  eloquent  and  enthusi- 
astic essay  on  VirgH  by  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  in  Essays  Classical,  an  appreciation  which 
is  itself  a  classic  and  to  which  every  student  of  Virgil  is  deeply  indebted. 

*  Dedication  to  his  translation  of  the  Aeneid. 

*  Aen.  3,  34;  vide  Milman's  essay  on  Savonarola,  p.  422. 
*Aen.  6,  884;   vide  Pur g.  30,  21. 

*  Gtorg.  I,  250;  vide  Rosebery's  Life  of  PiU,  chap.  6. 
*Aen.  6,  812;  vide  Life,  by  Spartianus,  2. 
"^Aen.t,  882;  vide  Life,  by  Lampridius,  4. 


lO 


THE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL 


II 


when  he  sought  advice  about  his  education:  tu  regere  imperio  popu- 
loSy  Romanej  memento.^  The  first  Gordian  learned  the  fate  of  his 
son:  ostendent  terris  hunc  tantum  fata.^  The  second  Claudius 
learned  of  his  own  short  reign  (a.d.  268-270)  in  the  line:  tertia  dum 
Latio  regnantem  viderit  aestas;^  but  was  consoled  by  the  prophecy  for 
his  posterity,  his  ego  nee  metas  rerum  nee  tempora  pono.^  The  ill- 
fated  Clodius  Albinus  was  spurred  on  in  his  rash  ambition  for  empire 
when  as  a  tribime  he  consulted  the  Virgilian  oracle  in  the  temple 
of  Apollo  at  Cumae:  his  rem  Romanam  magno  turhante  tumultu 
Sistet  eques.^  And  so  on  down  to  modem  times,  once  more,  for 
the  most  impressive  instance,  when  Charles  I  consulting  Virgil  in 
the  Bodleian  Library  at  Oxford  on  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war  drew 
upon  himself  the  tremendous  curse  pronoimced  by  Dido  upon  the 
recreant  Aeneas: 

at  bello  audacis  populi  vexatus  et  armis, 
finibus  extorris,  conplexu  avolsus  luli, 
auxilium  inploret,  videatque  indigna  suonim 
funera;  nee  cum  se  sub  leges  pads  iniquae 
tradiderit,  regpo  aut  optata  luce  fruatur; 
sed  cadat  ante  diem  mediaque  inhumatus  arena.^ 

It  is  true  that  Virgil's  pre-eminence  has  not  been  undisputed. 
If  Varius  and  Plotius  had  partly  heeded  his  dying  behest,  and  if 
Octavian  had  insisted  on  preserving  only  the  three  great  books 
known  to  him  from  Virgil's  own  reading,  we  can  well  believe  that 
there  would  never  have  been  any  dispute,  that  this  superb  fragment 
would  have  stood  in  all  men's  minds  as  the  high-water  mark  of 

^  Aen.  6,  848  £F.;  vide  Life^  by  Lampridius,  14. 

*  Aen.  6,  869;    vide  Capitolinus,  Gordiani  TreSy   20. 

*  Aen.  I,  265;  vide  Life^  by  Trebellius,  10. 
*Aen.  I,  278;   vide  Life^  by  Trebellius,  10. 
s  i4c«.  6,  857;  vide  Life,  by  Capitolinus,  5. 

*  Aen.  4, 615.  This  striking  story,  given  by  most  commentators  without  reference, 
is  to  be  foimd  in  Memoirs  of  the  Most  Material  Transactions  in  England,  for  the  Last 
Hundred  Years,  Preceding  the  Revolution  in  1688.  Written  at  the  Desire  of  the  Late 
Queen  Mary,  by  James  Welwood,  M.D.  (Physician  to  William  III),  London,  1749 
(ist  ed.  1 700) ,  pp.  90  flf .  Dr.  Welwood  introduces  the  anecdote  as  follows :  "  Then  bef el 
him  an  Accident,  which  though  a  Trifle  in  it  self,  and  that  no  Weight  is  to  be  laid 
upon  any  thing  of  that  nature;  yet  since  the  best  Authors,  both  Antient  and  Modem, 
have  not  thought  it  below  the  Majesty  of  History  to  mention  the  like,  it  may  be  the 
more  excusable  to  insert  it." 


poetry,  and  the  lost  books  would  have  been  lamented  far  more  than 
the  lyrics  of  Sappho  or  the  comedies  of  Menander.*  The  horror 
and  pity  of  Book  II  strike  a  higher  note  than  all  the  warfare  of 
the  Iliady  and  a  note  new  in  poetry.  The  passion  and  tragedy  of 
Book  IV,  the  first  love  story  in  Uterature  dealt  with  psychologically 
and  sympathetically,  place  Virgil  on  a  level  with  the  greatest 
dramatists;  you  have  to  look  to  Aeschylus  or  Shakespeare  for  his 
equal.  Here  we  may  say  of  Virgil  what  he  himself  said  of  Pollio: 
sola  Sophocleo  tua  carmina  digna  cothurno.^  For  the  majesty  and 
mystery  of  Book  VI  you  seek  in  vain  a  parallel  in  all  "the  reahns  of 
gold";  no  poetry  reaches  a  higher  level  or  sounds  a  loftier  note 
than  that  subHme  music  blended  of  moral  earnestness  and  religious 
awe,  the  stateliness  of  history  and  the  charm  of  legend,  an  infinite 
tenderness  for  the  pathos  of  life  and  a  high  faith  in  the  divine 
spirit  animating  and  directing  all  things  to  some  great  end. 

These  are  the  books  for  which  Voltaire  claimed  a  great  superi- 
ority over  the  works  of  all  the  Greek  poets.^  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
Virgil's  hostile  critics  have  been  moved  chiefly  by  the  inevitable 
fact  that  he  is  not  always  up  to  his  own  highest  level.  The  same 
thing  is  true  to  a  much  greater  degree  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton, 
and  everybody  knows  that  quandoque  bonus  dormitat  Homerus. 
We  should  never  forget  VirgiFs  own  dissatisfaction  with  his  unfin- 
ished work  and  his  pathetic  wish  to  have  it  destroyed. 

Other  objections  to  our  poet  arise  from  misconceptions.  There 
are  three  main  accusations:  one  as  to  his  alleged  plagiarism,  the 
second  as  to  his  alleged  flattery  of  Augustus,  the  third  as  to  the 
alleged  weakness  of  character  in  his  hero.  I  trust  that  even  this 
brief  paper  will  serve  to  answer  such  ill-considered  charges. 

To  the  charge  of  plagiarism  Virgil  himself  made  the  best  reply, 
when  accused  of  borrowing  from  Homer,  that  it  is  easier  to  steal 

'Donatus,  46:  tres  onmino  libros  recitavit,  secundmn  videlicet,  quartum,  et 
sextum— and  52 :  qui  cum  gravari  morbo  sese  sentiret,  scrinia  saepe  et  magna  instantia 
petivit,  crematurus  Aeneida;  quibus  negatis,  testamento  comburi  jussit,  ut  rem  inemen- 
datam  imperfectamque.  verum  Tucca  et  Varius  monuerunt  id  Augustum  non 
permissunun. 

'Ec.  8,  10. 

» Dictionnaire  philosophique,  s.v.  "Epopee":  "B  me  semble  que  le  second  livre 
de  VEnSide,  le  quatrifime,  et  le  sixiSme,  sont  autant  au-dessus  de  tous  les  pontes 
grecs  et  de  tous  les  latins,  sans  exceptions." 


12 


THE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL 


13 


his  club  from  Hercules  than  a  verse  from  Homer.'  We  recall 
Voltaire's  witty  saying:  Homere  a  fait  Virgile,  dit-on;  si  cela  est, 
c^est  sans  doute  son  plus  hel  ouvrage.^  "People  accuse  Virgil  of 
plagiarizing,"  exclaimed  Tennyson,"  but  if  a  man  made  it  his 
own,  there  was  no  harm  in  that;  look  at  the  great  poets,  Shake- 
speare included."^  Virgil  had  absorbed  and  assimilated  all  the 
culture  of  his  time,  he  knew  intimately  the  great  poets,  Latin  as 
well  as  Greek,  but  his  reading  he  had  made  his  own,  and  the  echoes 
come  back  with  a  subtle  transmutation  of  soimd,  the  reflections 
appear  with  a  delicate  enrichment  in  his  setting/  We  are  told 
that  the  moonlight  of  Virgil  is  pale  beside  the  bright  sun  of  Homer, 
shining  in  the  glad  morning  of  the  world  ;S  and  we  reply  that  moon- 
light too  has  its  beauty,  a  pensive  charm,  a  melancholy  grace,  a 
tenderness  and  mystery  that  have  as  potent  an  appeal  to  some 
moods.  Why  compare  such  different  things?  The  moon,  how- 
ever, shines  with  borrowed  light!  Homer  himself,  we  have  come 
to  see,  is  the  product  of  a  long  and  highly  artificial  culture,  the 
successor  of  an  extinct  dynasty  of  bards;  as  Kipling  tells  us: 

When  *Omer  smote  *is  bloomin'  lyre, 

He*d  'card  men  sing  by  land  an'  sea; 
An '  what  he  thought  'e  might  require 

'E  went  an*  took,  the  same  as  me. 

"Both  argosies,"  says  Professor  Mackail,"  are  freighted  with  the 
treasure  of  many  sunken  ships."' 

An  answer  to  the  charge  of  flattery  is  foimd  first  in  the  spirit 
of  the  time,  and  second  in  the  really  sublime  ideal  which  lay  behind 
VirgiFs  glorification  of  Caesar. 

In  the  reign  of  Augustus  appeared  a  phenomenon  unique  in 
history:  the  formation  of  a  state  religion,  introduced  without  vio- 
lence, accepted  without  revolt,  and  practised  with  a  fervor  and 
spontaneity  which  give  no  groimd  for  accusing  the  people  of  a 

>  Donatus,  64:  facilius  esse  Herculi  clavam  quam  Homero  versum  surripere. 

*  Appendix  to  the  Henriade,  "Essai  sur  la  po6sie  6pique,"  chap.  3. 

>  Memoir  of  Tennyson,  by  his  son,  Vol.  11,  p.  385. 

4  See  some  very  suggestive  and  discriminating  remarks  on  ce  mode  d^imitaiion 
iclectique  in  Sainte-Beuve,  Nouveaux  lundisj  t.  XI,  "  (Euvres  de  Virgile." 

s  For  instance,  by  Andrew  Lang,  in  his  Letters  on  Literature. 

•  *  *  Virgil  and  Virgilianism,"  in  the  Classical  Review,  May,  1908. 


shamefxil  compliance.  In  the  cult  of  the  Caesars  were  fused  many 
old  and  widespread  religious  ideas;  the  emperor  became  the 
personification  of  Rome  whose  benefits  were  summed  up  in  the 
two  words,  pax  Romana,^  This  cult  became  a  great  unifying 
influence,  it  helped  to  put  the  element  of  imity  and  universality 
into  the  popular  idea  of  divinity,  and  to  develop  the  conception  of 
an  orderly  and  ethical  government  of  the  universe.  It  imquestion- 
ably  played  a  great  part  in  preparing  the  world  for  Christianity .» 

The  worship  of  Peace  and  of  Augustus  as  giver  of  peace  seems 
hardly  unnatural  when  we  think  of  the  terrible  century  which  cul- 
minated at  Actium,  with  its  twelve  civil  wars,  conceived  of  by  Virgil 
as  a  punishment  inflicted  by  the  wrath  of  heaven  on  the  sins  of 
men.  Rome  had  turned  aside  from  her  great  destiny,  and  now 
was  being  regenerated  by  a  heaven-sent  leader  who  was  to  usher 
in  a  new  age  of  peace  and  righteousness.^ 

Virgil's  worship  of  Augustus  is  not  the  flattery  of  a  court  poet, 
but  the  veneration  and  awe  of  a  poetic  and  prophetic  soul  contem- 
plating the  great  man  who  occupied  a  imique  place  in  history — 
descendant  of  Aeneas  and  his  spiritual  coimterpart,  with  a  like 
divine  mission  to  accomplish  on  a  vaster  scale:  to  extend  the 
blessings  of  peace  and  civilization  and  religion  to  all  the  world,  to 
lead  Rome  on  to  the  fulfilment  of  her  larger  destiny,  to  crown  her 
political  empire  with  a  higher  spiritual  dominion. 

Augustus  is  divine  first  of  all  as  the  giver  of  peace.  Deus  nobis 
haec  otia  fecit  (sings  Titynis  in  the  first  Eclogue),  namque  erit  ille 
mihi  semper  deus.  The  fourth  Eclogue  is  an  exultant  Gloria  over 
the  new  hope  of  the  world,  the  Golden  Age  about  to  be  born.  The 
first  Georgic  closes  with  a  magnificent  and  indignant  lament  over 
the  crime  and  madness  of  the  civil  wars,  and  a  fervent  prayer  to 
Rome's  guardian  gods  to  preserve  the  young  prince  of  peace  till  he 
shall  have  accomplished  his  work  of  regeneration.  In  the  great 
prophecy  of  Aeneid  i.  it  is  not  the  gorgeous  line  of  Rome's  martial 

« Seneca  De  prov.  4,  14. 

*  Vide  Duruy,  Hist,  des  Romains,  t.  IV,  p.  18,  and  an  interesting  paper  by  A.  P. 
Ball  on  "The  Theological  Utility  of  the  Caesar  Cult,"  in  the  Classical  Journal,  May, 
1910. 

*  See  the  magnificent  peroration  of  the  first  Georgic,  and  the  profoundly  suggestive 
essay  by  Professor  Conway  on  "The  Messianic  Idea  in  Virgil,"  in  the  Hibbert  Journal, 
Vol.  V. 


) ' 


14 


THE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL 


15 


III 


1 1 


triumphs  that  impresses  one  most  in  the  stately  verses,  but  the 

sweet  and  solemn  ending  in  a  paean  of  peace: 

aspera  tunc  positis  mitescent  saecula  bellis, 
cana  Fides  et  Vesta,  Remo  cum  fratre  Quirinus 
jura  dabunt;  dirae  ferro  et  conpagibus  artis 
claudentur  Belli  portae.' 

So  in  Book  VI  it  is  not  Rome's  warrior  heroes  in  that  grand  pro- 
cession of  prophetic  figures  who  attract  the  chief  attention— it  is 
the  heroes  of  peace: 

quique  sacerdotes  casti,  dum  vita  manebat, 
quique  pii  vates  et  Phoebo  digna  locuti, 
inventas  aut  qui  vitam  excoluere  per  artis, 
quique  sui  memores  alios  fecere  merendo." 

And  the  chief  spur  to  Aeneas  in  his  great  adventure  is  the  vision 
of  his  illustrious  descendant,  who  is  to  bring  back  the  Golden 
Age: 

hie  vir,  hie  est,  tibi  quem  promitti  saepius  audis, 
Augustus  Caesar,  Divi  genus,  aurea  condet 
saecula  qui  rursus  Latio  regnata  per  arva 
Satumo  quondam.3 

Horace  in  like  manner  sang  of  Augustus  the  peacemaker: 

quo  nihil  majus  meliusve  terris 
fata  donavere  bonique  divi 

nee  dabunt,  quamvis  redeant  in  aurum 
tempora  priscum.* 

The  second  Aeneas  [says  Duniy]  passes  tranquil  and  mild  through  the 
midst  of  a  disturbed  world,  cahning  the  passions  which  he  no  longer  shares, 
bringing  back  upon  earth  the  order  which  the  gods  maintain  m  heaven,  and 
carrying  in  his  hands  the  destinies  of  the  new  Rome,  of  which  he  will  be  in  his 
turn  the  guardian  god,  divus  Augustus^ 

Ideas  and  ideals  like  these  are  most  appealing  and  suggestive 
when  conveyed  in  the  mediimi  of  poetry,  but  we  find  them  both 
implicit  and  explicit  in  the  sober  prose  of  history.  Time  would 
fail  to  give  merely  a  Ust  of  references.  The  impression  produced 
by  the  character  and  purpose  of  Augustus  confronts  us  everywhere. 


Men.  I,  291. 
*Aen.  6,  661. 
s  Hist,  des  RomainSj  t.  IV,  p.  i73' 


i  Aen.  6,  791. 
<CWe5  4,  2,  37. 


"Not  only  from  the  greatness  of  his  empire  but  also  from  the  great- 
ness of  his  character  was  he  the  first  man  to  be  called  Augustus," 
says  Philo  the  Jew;'  and  in  Josephus  the  Jew  we  find  full  expres- 
sion of  the  belief  in  the  divine  destiny  of  Rome,  from  the  lips  of 
that  King  Agrippa  whom  St.  Paul  almost  persuaded  to  become  a 
Christian.' 

"He  proclaimed  peace  and  good-will,"  says  Appian,  and  on  his 
statue  in  the  Forum  was  inscribed:  "Peace,  long  disturbed,  he 
re-established  on  land  and  sea."^  His  own  words  on  the  monument 
at  Ancyra  state  briefly: 

When  victorious  I  spared  the  lives  of  all  citizens;  foreign  nations  which 
could  safely  be  pardoned  I  preferred  to  preserve  rather  than  destroy. 

And  again: 

In  the  Julian  Curia  was  placed  a  golden  shield  which  by  its  inscription 
bore  witness  that  it  was  given  to  me  by  the  senate  and  Roman  people  on  account 
of  my  valor,  clemency,  justice,  and  piety .< 

Coins  of  his  reign  bear  the  grateful  inscription,  civihus  servatis 
or  oh  cives  servatos,  and  an  inscription  speaks  of  "the  whole  world 
pacified."s  The  Ara  Pacts  Augustae  decreed  by  the  senate  after 
his  campaigns  in  Spain  and  Gaul,  and  consecrated  in  the  Campus 
Martins  in  9  B.C.,  seems  like  an  effort  to  perpetuate  Virgilian  ideals 
in  stone;  the  beautiful  reliefs  on  the  front  symbolized  that  Golden 
Age  of  peace  and  plenty  which  is  the  main  motive  in  the  Georgics 
and  Bucolics,  and  represented  Aeneas  introducing  his  gods  to  Italy, 

'  De  virtutibus  et  Ugatione  ad  Caium  21 :  h  Siii  yueyieot  ijy^fioplai  a^oKparoOs  httav 
Kal  KoKoKiyaBlas  Tpuros  dyofKurdcU  Se/ScwrAs;  quoted  by  Merivale,  Hist,  of  Romans 
Vol.  IV,  p.  289. 

"Joseph.  Bell.  Jud.  2,  i6.  Agrippa's  attempt  to  dissuade  the  Jews  from  their 
last,  mad  struggle  against  Rome— "for  it  is  impossible  that  so  vast  an  empire  should 
have  been  organized  without  God's  providence."    Cf.  Tac.  Hist.  4,  74. 

»  Appian  Bell.  civ.  5,  130:  icariJryeXX^  re  elpi/ipriv  Kal  eitdvpXav  .  .  .  .  r^9  elp^irgv 
iara(ri€urfiirriv  ix  toXXou  <rv»4<rTrf<r€  Kard  re  yrjv  xal  $d\a<r<rap. 

*Mon.  Anc.  $:  Victorque  omnibus  superstitibus  dvibus  peperci;  extemas  gentes 

quibus  tuto  ignosci  potuit,  conservare  quam  exddere  malui 34:  Clupeusque 

aureus  in  ciuia  Julia  positus,  quem  mihi  senatmn  populumque  Romanum  dare  vir- 
tutis  clementiae  justitiae  pietatis  causa  testatum  est  per  ejus  clupei  inscriptionem. 

*C/I,  VI,  1527:  pacato  orbe  terrarum. 


11  'I 


i6 


THE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL 


type  of  Augustus  as  lawgiver  and  religious  reformer— the  theme  of 
the  Aeneid.^ 

There  is  no  good  which  men  can  desire  of  the  gods  [says  Velleius],  none  that 
the  gods  can  bestow  on  men,  none  that  can  be  conceived  in  wishes,  none  that 
can  be  comprised  in  perfect  good-fortune,  which  Augustus  did  not  realize  to 
the  state,  to  the  Roman  people,  and  to  the  world.  The  civil  wars  were  ended, 
peace  was  recalled,  energy  was  restored  to  the  laws,  authority  to  the  courts  of 
justice,  and  majesty  to  the  senate.  The  cultivation  of  the  land  was  revived, 
reverence  was  restored  to  religion,  security  to  men's  persons,  and  to  every  man 
safe  enjoyment  of  his  property.^ 

And  Pliny  in  an  eloquent  and  memorable  passage  speaks  of 
Italy  as 

the  land  of  all  lands  nurslmg  alike  and  mother,  chosen  by  divine  providence  to 
make  heaven  itself  more  illustrious,  to  unite  the  scattered  nations,  to  humanize 
their  religions,  to  draw  together  the  savage  and  discordant  tongues  of  so  many 
peoples  by  the  gift  of  a  common  language  into  communication  with  one  another, 
to  give  humanity  to  men,  and  in  short  to  become  the  one  fatherland  of  all 
races  in  the  whole  world.* 

The  answer  to  the  third  accusation,  as  to  the  weakness  of  the 
character  of  Aeneas,  has  been  so  completely  made  by  Professor 
Rand  in  his  admirable  essay  on  ''Virgil  and  the  Drama"^— one  of 
the  most  illuminating  contributions  to  Virgilian  criticism  made  in 
America — that  I  cannot  do  better  than  refer  to  him. 

He  shows  that  the  Aeneid  is  constructed  of  two  tragedies,  that 
of  Dido  and  that  of  Tumus,  both  victims  of  fate,  but  fate  conceived 
in  a  new  way,  nobler  than  that  of  the  Attic  drama.  This  Virgilian 
conception  is  set  forth  in  the  sixth  book,  which  separates  the  two 
tragedies;  fate  is  the  march  of  progress  toward  "one  far-off  divine 
event,"  and  Aeneas  is  its  chosen  instrument.    Dido  and  Turnus 

» So  of  the  ludi  saectdares,  Ferrero,  Greatness  and  Decline  of  Rome,  Vol.  V,  p.  82, 
says:  "We  might  ahnost  think  that  the  ludi  saeculares  (18  B.C.)  were  merely  a  frag- 
ment of  the  Aeneid  in  outward  show,  so  wholly  Virgilian  was  their  conception." 

« Velleius  2,  89;  cf.  Flonis  4,  3. 

3Plin.  N.H.  3,  39:  Nee  ignoro  ingrati  ac  segnis  animi  existimari  posse  merito, 
si  obiter  atque  in  transcursu  ad  hunc  modum  dicatur  terra  omnium  terrarum  alumna 
eadem  et  parens,  numine  deum  electa  quae  caelum  ipsum  clarius  faceret,  sparsa  con- 
gregaret  imperia  ritusque  molliret  et  tot  populorum  discordes  ferasque  linguas  scr- 
monis  commercio  contraheret  ad  colloquia  et  hiunanitatem  homini  daret,  breviterque 
una  cunctanmi  gentium  in  toto  orbe  patria  fieret. 

<  Classical  Journal^  Vol.  IV. 


17 


oppose  this  fate,  and  are  crushed  by  it,  the  one  sinning  through 
weakness  and  the  other  through  violence.  Aeneas  sins  and  suffers 
too — he  is  no  mere  cold-blooded,  hard-hearted  automaton,  or 
marionette  of  destiny;  but  triumphs  finally  by  his  self-sacrificing 
devotion  to  the  will  of  heaven. 

Tumus  is  a  crude  barbarian  contrasted  with  the  courtesy  and 
chivalry  of  Aeneas.  The  figure  of  Aeneas  seems  colorless  only  to 
those  who  look  for  a  romantic  or  warlike  youth  in  an  epic  hero; 
his  is  a  much  nobler  heroism,  that  of  the  Stoic  philosopher,  that  of 
the  Christian  saint,  the  man  who  endures  and  resigns  himself  to 
the  will  of  God.'  He  plunges  desperately  into  the  fight  for  his 
fatherland,  though  he  knows  the  struggle  is  vain,  and  seeks  to  die 
with  his  countrymen :  he  is  the  champion  of  a  lost  cause — the  high- 
est type  of  militant  hero.  Into  the  war  in  Italy  he  is  drawn  sorely 
against  his  will:  he  comes  as  a  pilgrim,  not  as  an  adventurer;* 
the  conflict  is  forced  upon  him  by  the  blind  violence  of  Tumus 
(violentia  Turni),  Our  indignant  pity  for  Dido  and  for  Turnus 
should  open  our  eyes  rather  than  blind  us  to  the  consummate  art 
of  Virgil  and  to  his  own  deep  human  sympathy  that  call  forth  such 
response  in  us;  the  poet  that  created  these  characters  as  the  chief 
opponents  to  the  high  destiny  of  Aeneas  (Romanae  stirpis  origo) 
did  not  intend  his  hero  to  be  a  mere  figure-head,  nor  could  he  have 
failed  from  lack  of  ability  to  make  him  a  real  and  commanding 
figure:  we  need  to  study  more  closely  the  hero  and  VirgiFs  concep- 
tion and  purpose.  Aeneas  foreshadows  the  most  enlightened 
thought  of  our  own  day  as  to  the  crime  and  the  needlessness  of 
war  (insania  belli) ;  and  for  Virgil,  the  first  and  most  impassioned 
preacher  of  peace,  will  be  found  a  shrine  in  that  Temple  of  Uni- 
versal Peace  which  our  twentieth  century  is  only  beginning  to 
conceive  and  to  construct. 

To  Virgil  as  much  as  to  Euripides  belongs  Aristotle's  epithet 
rpayiKcoTaro^,  *'most  tragic  of  poets."  He  sounded  a  new  note 
in  literature  and  fathered  a  new  word:  since  his  time  pietas  has 
meant  pity  as  well  as  piety,  the  idea  of  humanity  has  been  added 
to  the  idea  of  duty.    When  we  look  on  those  representations  of 

*  Cf.  Duniy,  Hist,  des  Romains,  t.  IV,  p.  173. 

■  Cf.  Aen.  8,  29:  Aeneas  tristi  turbatus  pectora  bello;  11,  108  ff.;  12,  109;  etc. 


i8 


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ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL 


19 


(> 


I 


the  crucified  Savior  which  the  Italians  call  pietd — symbolizing  all  the 
tragedy  of  life  and  the  divine  consolation  that  transfigures  it — we 
remember  Virgil,  who  first  gave  expression  to  the  feeling  we  think 
of  as  Christian,  a  tenderness  for  all  unhappy  things  and  a  faith  that  all 
sorrow  serves  some  higher  end .  This  is  really  his  chief  characteristic, 
best  suggested  in  his  best  known  phrase,  those  words  of  haunting, 
imtranslatable  charm — lacrimae  rerum.  Pious  Aeneas  is  not  merely 
the  type  of  a  righteous  king,  like  Tennyson's  Arthur,  but  a  Prince  of 
Peace,  a  sort  of  Messiah,  destined  to  bring  not  only  religion  and  civi- 
lization into  Italy,  but  also,  through  his  descendants  in  the  fulness 
of  time,  a  new  spirit  upon  earth  of  peace  and  good-will  to  men. 

That  pietas  is  Virgil's  chief  motive  who  will  doubt  when  he 
recalls  the  most  aflFecting  passages  in  his  poetry,  from  that  early 
pastoral  lament  for  Gallus  down  through  all  his  verse,  in  great 
episodes  or  in  "pathetic  half-lines"? — the  tragedy  of  Troy,  the 
doom  of  Dido,  the  moving  story  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice,  the 
tears  of  Hector's  Andromache,  the  dirge  of  young  Marcellus,  the 
parting  of  Pallas  and  Evander  and  the  grief  for  Pallas  untimely 
slain,  the  heroic  death  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus,  the  mourning  for 
the  maid  Camilla,  and  the  indignant  pity  for  savage  but  gallant 
Tumus,  falling  a  victim  to  that  destiny  which  for  Virgil  means 
progress  and  enlightenment. 

Nullus  erit  in  illis  scriptis  liber  [says  Seneca,  writing  to  a  young  man  who 
was  consoling  himself  by  turning  Virgil  into  Greek]  qui  non  plurima  varietatis 
humanae  incertorumque  casuum  et  lacrimarum  ex  alia  atque  alia  causa  fluen- 
tiimi  exempla  tibi  suggerat.' 

In  all  the  carnage  of  the  later  books,  wherein  half-heartedly 
Virgil  follows  his  father  Homer  non  passibus  acquis,  the  lines  that 
have  the  true,  authentic  note  are  those  of  a  pity  and  tenderness 
unknown  to  Homer.  The  carnage  of  the  second  book  is  not  at 
all  Homeric;  that  incomparable  description  of  the  death-agony 
of  Troy  is  a  strain  of  higher  mood  than  all  the  battle-scenes  of  the 
Iliad;  the  tragedy  and  terror  are  suffused  with  a  yearning  sympathy 
that  is  Virgil's  own. 

Since  Virgil,  then,  occupies  so  unique  a  place  in  literature,  in 
history,  and  in  the  curriculum,  how  unique  is  the  opportunity  of 

^  Ad  Polybium  de  consolatione  11,  5. 


the  teacher  of  Virgil!  The  instructor  in  the  preparatory  school 
sometimes  envies  the  college  teacher  his  wider  range  of  class  read- 
ing; but  I  think  that  no  one  who  has  the  good  fortune  to  teach 
Virgil  can  rightly  envy  any  other  lot.  The  highest  Roman  litera- 
ture falls  somewhat  short  of  Virgil,  and  his  position,  as  I  have 
already  said,  is  in  no  way  affected  by  the  general  superiority  of 
Greek  over  Roman  literature.  The  nobility  and  earnestness  of 
Lucretius  are  deeply  imbued  with  an  indignant  pessimism  in  strong 
contrast  with  Virgil's  melancholy  but  loving  tenderness.  The 
exquisite  grace  of  Horace's  odes  has  still  something  exotic  and 
artificial,  something  not  quite  sincere,  while  his  most  earnest 
satires  and  epistles  rarely  rise  to  the  heights  of  poetry,  and  nearly 
always  wind  up  with  a  somewhat  mocking  laugh.  The  passion  and 
power  of  Catullus,  unmatched  in  some  few  lines,  do  not  make  up 
for  his  consummate  selfishness  and  his  sins  against  decency.  The 
magnificent  prose  of  Cicero  and  Seneca — both  magnificent  though 
whole  worlds  apart— fails  of  some  of  its  due  effect  from  the  evident 
weaknesses  of  character  these  men  display.  (The  magnificent 
prose  of  Tacitus,  with  its  premonitions  of  the  later  Latin  of  St. 
Augustine  or  the  Vulgate  Bible,  is  itself  steeped  in  the  poetry  of 
Virgil.)  But  in  Virgil  we  have  not  only  "one  who  uttered  nothing 
base,"  but  one  whose  life  was  as  pure  as  his  writings.'  The 
student  of  Virgil  is  keeping  the  very  best  of  company.  He  echoes 
Horace's  warm  outburst  on  meeting  Virgil  with  Plotius  and  Varius 
(the  friends  who  became  his  literary  executors,  and  to  whom  we 
owe  the  Aeneid): 

animae  qualis  neque  candidiores 
terra  tulit,  neque  quis  me  sit  devinctior  alter.* 

A  white  soul  indeed,  burning  at  white  heat  with  love  for  all  things 
beautiful,  admiration  for  all  things  noble,  sympathy  for  all  things 

» "But  Virgil's  songs  are  pure,  except  that  horrid  one  beginning /offwo^wm  pastor 
Corydon"  (Byron,  Don  Juan,  i,  42).  The  gossip  of  the  pseudo-Donatus  recalls  the 
scandal-mongering  Suetonius,  to  whom  good  critics  have  attributed  this  Life,  and 
is  evidently  made  up  from  Virgil's  poems  or  alleged  poems.  The  anecdote  about  the 
punning  nickname  given  him  at  school— Parthenias  (virginalis),  like  that  given  to 
Milton  at  Cambridge,  "the  lady  of  Christ's"— has  a  far  more  authentic  sound,  and 
teUs  us  just  what  we  should  expect  about  his  pure  and  shy  young  manhood. 

*Sat,  I,  6,  40. 


¥ 


il' 


1 1 


20 


THE  SCHOOL  REVIEW 


pitiful!  In  reading  him  we  breathe  a  higher  air  and  are  illumined 
by  a  purer  light;  it  is  like  gazing  on  his  own  sun-drenched  Italian 
landscape  with  its  inefiFable  charm  (which  he  has  sung  as  no  other 
poet  has  sung)  from  some  airy  height  of  Father  Apennine;  we  are 
in  an  atmosphere  like  that  of  his  Elysian  fields,  lighted  by  a  radiance 
all  their  own: 

largior  hie  campos  aether  et  lumine  vestit 
purpureo,  solemque  suum,  sua  sidera  norunt.* 

Moreover,  few  students  continue  their  study  of  Latin  beyond 
Virgil,  and  pathetically  few  get  any  taste  of  the  great  Greek  poets; 
so  to  many  he  furnishes  the  only  connecting  link  in  the  long  chain 
of  influence  which  binds  us  to  the  past.  He  is  the  one  **  magic 
casement"  through  which  may  be  had  a  glimpse  of  those  '* faery 
lands  forlorn"  of  the  antique  world.  He  is  indeed  the  "golden 
branch  amid  the  shadows,"  the  open  sesame  to  that  sacred  realm 
of  the  dead.  To  get  some  vision,  even  the  dimmest,  of  this  classic 
past  through  the  eye  of  its  noblest  poet  is  worth  all  the  arduous 
labor  of  the  gradus  ad  Parnassum — that  difficilis  ascensus — the 
drudgery  of  Latin  forms  and  syntax,  and  all  the  hard  campaigning 
with  Caesar  in  Gaul. 

Most  schoolboys,  I  believe,  are  interested  in  the  tale  that  Virgil 
has  to  tell;  but  every  student  who  is  at  all  ready  to  read  him  should 
get  something  more;  he  should  get  some  realization  that  he  is 
dealing  with  great  poetry.  Adequate  preparation  for  beginning 
Virgil  I  should  define  to  be  a  correct  knowledge  of  Latin  forms,  a 
reasonable  approximation  to  correct  pronunciation  and  quantita- 
tive reading,  and  some  knowledge  of  ancient  history  and  myth — 
some  conception  of  what  Greece  and  Rome  signify  to  the  world. 
The  Virgil  course  should  be,  then,  above  all  things,  what  Professor 
Norton  used  to  call  his  Dante  class,  a  course  in  poetry,  and  the 
student  should  never  be  allowed  to  forget  that  Virgil  is  a  supreme 
poet:  maximus  vates  (as  Seneca  says)  et  velut  divino  ore  instinctus,^ 
St.  Augustine  expresses  the  ideal: 

Vergilimn  propterea  parvuli  legunt,  ut  videlicet  poeta  magnus  omniumque 
praeclarissimus  atque   optimus   teneris  ebibitus  animis  non  facile  oblivione 


ON  TEACHING  VIRGIL 


21 


*  i4e«.  6,  640. 


*  De  hrev.  viiae  9,  2, 


possit  aboleri,  secundum  illud  Horati:  "quo  semel  est  imbuta  recens  servabit 
odorem  testa  diu."» 

The  very  first  step  toward  this  ideal  is  the  reading  aloud  of  the 
verse — reading,  not  scanning — ^in  a  way  to  bring  out  some  of  that 
music  of  "the  stateliest  measure  ever  moulded  by  the  lips  of  man." 
This  seems  an  obvious  remark,  but  there  are  teachers  who  neither 
read  themselves  nor  hear  their  pupils  read,  who  confine  themselves 
to  translation  and  to  granunar.  The  music  is  inseparable  from  the 
poetry,  and  Tennyson's  description  of  the  Virgilian  hexameter 
is  no  exaggeration:  it  is  a  different  harmony  from  the  "stfong- 
winged  music  of  Homer,"  it  is  the  Greek  hexameter  romanized 
and  made  a  new  thing,  with  Roman  stateliness  added  to  the  Greek 
beauty.  The  noblest  English  verse  can  give  no  suggestion  of  its 
peculiar  magnificence,  its  sweep  and  resonance  and  melody.  The 
versification  alone  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  inadequacy  of  all 
English  translations  of  Virgil.  It  would  be  a  pity  indeed  if  a  stu- 
dent should  translate  the  lines  and  never  get  a  notion  of  the  glorious 
music  of  the  hexameter,  "which  in  Virgil's  hands  became  such  an 
instrument  as  the  world  has  never  since  beheld  for  expressing  and 
arousing  all  the  nobler  emotions — armay  amor,  rectitudo,  as  Dante 
classifies  them."' 

Virgilian  grammar  presents  no  added  difficulties  to  the  student 
fresh  from  Caesar  or  Cicero;  rather  he  finds  in  Latin  poetry  a 
much  more  natural  and  flexible  mode  of  expression  than  in  prose; 
and  the  time  hitherto  devoted  to  grammar  may  now  be  given  to 
more  important  things. 

If  the  pupil  has  been  trained,  as  he  should  be,  from  the  beginning 
to  pronounce  Latin  quantitatively,  not  slighting  imaccented  long 
syllables  in  order  to  put  exaggerated  stress  on  the  accented  syllable, 
as  our  modem  mode  of  English  speech  tempts  us  to  do,  there  will 
be  little  difficulty  with  the  metrical  reading.^  Pupils  so  trained 
need  never  hear  of  the  much-debated  ictus,  if  they  once  grasp  the 
difference  between  quantitative  and  accentual  verse;   they  might 

« De  civ.  dei  i,  3. 

*  A.  J.  Butler,  Forerunners  of  DanUy  p.  vi. 

'Professor  Knapp  has  some  excellent  remarks  on  this  subject  in  the  Classical 
Weekly,  Vol.  HI. 


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even  dispense  with  that  most  unpoetical  and  mechanical  process 
of  scanning — except  on  paper,  for  the  enlightenment  of  their 
teachers  at  examination  time/  Without  hoping  to  read  Latin 
verse  as  the  Romans  did,  we  need  not  despair  of  reading  it  in  a 
way  that  would  not  set  a  Romanes  teeth  on  edge.  Let  us  consider 
that  Shakespeare  would  hardly  recognize  as  English  our  modern 
rendering  of  his  lines;  but  do  we  get  no  music  out  of  them  ?  Let 
us  consider  too  that  generations  of  Englishmen  have  read  Virgil  as 
so  much  accentual  English  verse,  and  have  enjoyed  and  appreciated 
him  to  a  degree  that  we  in  America  are  only  beginning  to  approach. 
Our  pronunciation  with  its  Italian  vowel-sounds  is  an  immense 
gain  in  sonorousness  and  melody,  and  if  we  can  only  have  due  regard 
for  quantity  and  refrain  from  undue  attention  to  accent — which 
never  in  Southern  Europe  has  such  stress  as  our  Northern  tongues 
give  to  it — ^we  are  getting  within  hearing-distance  of  that  "ocean- 
roll  of  rhythm."    Distant  though  we  may  be  from  the  sea  that  laves 

The  Latian  coast,  where  sprung  the  epic  war, 
Arms  and  the  Man,  whose  reascending  star 
Rose  o'er  an  empire,* 

we  may  catch  its  faint  echo  in  the  sea-shell  which 

Remembers  its  august  abodes 

And  murmurs  as  the  ocean  murmurs  there. 

"Englishmen,"  complained  Tennyson,  "mil  spoil  verses  by 
scanning  when  they  are  reading,  and  they  confound  accent  and 
quantity."^  "Indeed,  the  American,"  says  another  Englishman, 
"seems  to  be  the  only  modern  left  who  can  pronounce,  let  us  say, 
Idbaratory  or  drdindry  with  regard  both  to  accent  and  to  quantity."* 
In  Tennyson's  Life  we  shall  find,  as  well  as  in  his  poems,  many 
suggestive  hints  as  to  the  quantitative  reading  of  verse,  and  many 
fine  appreciations  of  Virgil.  It  is  of  Tennyson  that  F.  W.  H.  Myers 
wrote:   "Surely  not  philology  nor  history,  but  such  a  vital  sense 

*  Professor  Bennett's  pamphlet  is  a  most  helpful  introduction  to  such  reading: 
The  Quantitative  Reading  of  Latin  Poetry,  Boston:  AUyn  &  Bacon,  1899. 

*  Byron,  Childe  Harold y  4, 174. 

» Memoir  of  Tennyson,  by  his  son,  Vol.  II,  p.  12. 

<  Professor  AUbutt  in  an  address  on  "The  Speaking  of  Latin,"  Proceedings  of  the 
Third  General  Meeting  of  the  Classical  Association,  London,  1906. 


of  the  spirit  of  classical  poetry  as  he  possessed  is  the  true  measure 
of  antiquity  and  the  flower  of  the  past."'  His  own  metrical  experi- 
ments are  perhaps  the  best  start  for  one  about  to  read  Latin  verse. 
Swinburne  also  has  used  classical  meters  with  admirable  musical 
effect.  The  student  who  can  read  such  English  poems  has  only  the 
difficulty  of  elision  to  overcome  in  order  to  read  Latin  poetry  with 
success — ^provided  he  has  had  the  proper  training  in  quantitative 
pronunciation.  The  lack  of  such  training  is  a  serious  defect. 
High-school  principals  rarely  put  French  and  German  classes  into 
the  hands  of  persons  who  cannot  pronounce  those  tongues  with 
reasonable  correctness,  but  it  sometimes  seems  as  if  they  thought 
that  beginning  Latin  can  be  taught  by  anybody. 

Given  the  daily  realization  that  Virgil  is  at  least  verse,  the  stu- 
dent may  come  to  feel  that  Virgil  is  poetry,  and  great  poetry, 
partly  through  his  innate  taste  and  partly  through  his  teacher's 
comments  by  the  way.  Some  attention  will  be  given  in  trans- 
lation to  poetic  diction,  the  varied  vocabulary,  the  constant  use 
of  metaphor,  the  order  and  emphasis  of  words,  and  their  larger 
meanings  and  associations;  and  some  attempt  will  be  made  to 
suggest  the  wealth  of  the  original  in  changing  its  gold  into  the  silver 
or  copper  of  current  English.  Readers  are  always  charmed,  I 
think,  by  the  musical  effect  of  alliteration  and  onomatopoeia,  in 
which  Virgil's  verse  is  so  surprisingly  rich;  they  can  be  interested 
in  the  figures  of  speech— despite  the  terrible  names— which  play 
so  large  a  part  in  poetry;  and  if  they  have  any  literary  sense  at 
all,  they  must  take  pleasure  in  some  reminder  of  the  abundant 
store  of  literary  parallels  that  help  to  show  the  vast  influence  and 
inspiration  which  Virgil  has  exercised,  as  well  as  of  the  treasures 
of  earlier  poetry  which  he  did  not  borrow,  but  absorbed,  assimilated, 
and  made  his  own.  As  an  introduction  to  Virgil,  there  is  no  reason 
why  even  the  high-school  student  should  not  read  and  appreciate 
the  beautiful  chapter  in  Professor  Mackail's  Latin  Literature. 

The  plea  has  often  been  made  for  reading  in  school  parts  at  least 
of  the  last  six  books  of  the  Aeneidy  and  there  are  encouraging  signs 
of  a  movement  in  that  direction.  Some  schools  read  the  whole 
poem.    It  is  also  to  be  desired  that  pupils  should  get  a  taste  of 

*  Memoir  of  Tennyson,  by  his  son.  Vol.  II,  p.  482. 


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Virgil  in  his  Eclogues,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  their  extraordinary 

influence  on  later  literature;   as  Professor  Woodberry  charmingly 

says: 

They  are  a  nest  of  the  singing  birds  of  all  lands;  as  one  reads,  voices  of 
Italy,  France,  and  England  blend  with  the  familiar  lines,  and  a  choiring  vision 
rises  before  him  of  the  world's  poets  in  their  youth  framing  their  lips  to  the 
smooth-sliding  syllables.* 

Pupils  should  not  be  cheated  out  of  the  fourth  Eclogue,  or  the 
tenth.  Above  all  they  should  read  at  least  the  great  passages  of 
the  GeorgicSy  VirgiFs  most  finished  and  original  work,  the  earliest 
and  greatest  of  nature  poems,  singing  the  majestic  praise  of  Italy 
in  the  most  patriotic  and  eloquent  strains  ever  uttered.  "Not  the 
muses  of  Greece,"  says  Andrew  Lang,  "but  his  own  Casmenae, 
song-maidens  of  Italy,  have  inspired  him  here,  and  his  music  is 
blown  through  a  reed  of  the  Mindus.' 

We  complain  of  lack  of  time,  and  justly;  but  if  only  the  properly 
qualified  students  were  admitted  to  Virgil,  how  much  could  be  done! 
We  waste  our  time  and  that  of  our  classes  over  incompetent  pupils. 
Democracy  is  a  good  thing,  even  in  school,  but  there  is  no  democracy 
of  intellect;  all  men  are  not  bom  free  and  equal  in  mind,  and  the 
chief  need  of  our  education  is  the  encouragement  of  intellectual 
distinction. 

Finally,  the  teacher  will  seek  to  suggest  from  time  to  time  that 
the  Aeneid  is  an  epic  "where  more  is  meant  than  meets  the  ear" 
— of  the  beginner;  that  besides  being  a  fine  narrative,  telling  a 
heroic  tale  drawn  from  the  old  legends,  and  telling  it  with  the  utmost 
beauty  of  diction  and  versification,  the  Aeneid  has  three  elements — 
faith,  patriotism,  and  hiunanity — constantly  appearing  to  the  eye 
that  looks  beneath  the  surface,  which  make  it  a  poem  of  religious, 
of  national,  and  of  universal  appeal.  Aeneas  is  a  man  of  destiny 
(Jato  profuguSyfatalis)y  whose  divine  mission  is  to  bring  religion  and 
civilization  into  Italy  and  to  found  the  Roman  race  {Romanam  con- 
dere  gentem) — the  chosen  people^  who  are  destined  to  communicate 

« Great  Writers,  "  Virgil."  » Letters  on  Literature. 

*The  idea  of  the  Romans  as  a  chosen  people,  like  the  Hebrews,  with  a  special 
genius  for  religion,  is  found  in  Cicero.  Vide  N.D,  2,  8:  si  conferre  volumus  nostra 
ciun  extemis,  ceteris  rebus  aut  pares  aut  etiam  inferiores  reperiemur,  religione,  id 
est  cultu  deorum,  multo  superiores.    De  harusp.  response  19:   quam  volumus  licet 


to  all  mankind  the  blessings  of  law  and  of  peace  (pacisque  imponere 
morem),  Aeneas  is  not  only  the  ancestor  of  the  Caesars,  but  the 
type  of  Augustus,  who,  after  the  terrible  century  of  civil  war  in 
which  Rome's  career  of  foreign  conquest  had  culminated,  had 
restored  peace  to  the  exhausted  world,  and  was  engaged  in  restoring 
the  old  Italian  morality  and  religion  that  had  made  Rome  mistress 
of  the  world.  It  is  Rome  (we  cannot  too  often  repeat)  that  is  the 
real  hero  of  the  Aeneid;  the  "ocean-roll  of  rhythm  sounds  forever 
of  imperial  Rome,"  and  VirgiPs  ideal  of  Rome  makes  this  the 
greatest  of  epic  themes — as  great  as  Milton's  (to  "justify  the  ways 
of  God  to  men")  or  Dante's  (to  glorify  the  Catholic  Church), 
both  somewhat  spoiled  for  us  by  a  dogmatic  theology,  both  some- 
what less  Christian  than  the  pagan  poem;  greater  far  than  the 
themes  of  Homer,  that  heroic  action  and  that  romantic  adventure 
which  are  the  imaginative  ideal  of  a  less  reflective  age.  Aeneas' 
chief  characteristic  is  piety — faith  in  the  gods  and  submission  to 
their  will,  and  faithfulness  to  all  his  duties  in  life.  He  is  not  so 
much  a  hero  of  action  as  the  personification  of  the  great  Roman 
virtue  patientia,  the  type  of  the  peace-loving  ruler  and  philosophic 
statesman.  He  has  survived  his  country's  downfall,  the  loss  of 
his  wife  and  his  father;  he  is  an  exile  preserved  against  his  will  to 
be  the  instrument  of  a  great  destiny,  that  of  grafting  on  the  rude 
and  rugged  Italian  stock  the  Greek  culture  and  humane  religion 
of  the  divinely  descended  Trojan  line — the  union  which  is  to  pro- 
duce in  the  fulness  of  time  that  imperial  Rome  which  shall  be  the 
righteous  and  peaceful  mother  of  all  mankind. 

But  Virgil's  appeal  is  more  than  religious  and  national;  it  is 
imiversal;  and  this  fact  is  due  to  his  qualities  as  a  man  and  a  poet. 
With  all  his  love  of  antiquity,  he  is  so  modern  in  spirit  that  his  verse 
— antiquarian,  legendary,  pagan,  and  Roman  as  it  is — comes  home 
to  the  twentieth  century  fraught  with  more  meaning  perhaps  than 

ipsi  nos  amemus;  tamen  nee  numero  Hispanos,  nee  robore  Gallos,  nee  callidate  Poenos, 
nee  artibus  Graecos,  nee  denique  hoc  ipso  hujus  gentis  ac  terrae  domestico  nativoque 
sensu  Italos  ipsos  ac  Latinos,  sed  pietate  et  religione,  atque  hac  una  sapientia,  quod 
deorum  immortalium  numine  omnia  regi  gubemarique  perspeximus,  omnes  gentes 
nationesque  superavimus.  Ferrero  says  that  Boissier  was  the  first  to  discover  that 
the  Aeneid  is  a  religious  poem,  but  the  comments  of  Macrobius  are  largely  concerned 
with  this  aspect  of  the  poem,  and  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Vettius  the  remark :  promitto 
fore  ut  Vergilius  noster  pontifex  maximus  adseratur  {Sat.  i,  24, 16). 


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it  bore  to  the  first.  His  universal  appeal  is  due  to  his  pietaSy 
chief  characteristic  of  the  poet  as  of  his  hero — that  sympathy 
which  broods  over  everything,  inanimate  nature  as  well  as  human 
life,  giving  a  deeper  meaning  to  his  words,  suffusing  them  with  a 
subtle,  pathetic  charm,  a  wistful  tenderness,  that  are  the  very 
essence  of  poetry  and  of  humanity.  Thus  his  epic  has  come  to  be 
almost  an  allegory  of  human  life,  and  the  adventures  of  Aeneas  can 
never  cease  to  have  a  moving  significance  and  a  heart-felt  appeal. 
On  every  page  of  Virgil  those  who  read  between  the  lines  will 
find  the  sturdy  morality  of  the  old  Roman  religion  (Romana  potens 
I  tola  virtute  propago),  the  sense  of  divine  guidance  in  the  humblest 
of  human  affairs  as  well  as  in  the  great  movements  of  history  {non 
haec  sine  numine  dvoom  eveniunt);^  they  will  find  the  enthusiastic 
patriotism  of  the  Roman  imperialist,  believing  in  his  race  as  the 
chosen  people  and  in  the  Caesars  as  the  ordained  leaders  of  man- 
kind; and  they  will  find  also  that  deep  human  sjnnpathy  which 
transcends  the  bounds  of  creed  and  sect,  the  barriers  of  race  and 
time  and  language,  that  makes  men  one  in  the  solemn  sense  of  the 
mystery  of  life,  the  pathos  of  things  human,  and  the  high  faith  in 
a  divine  purpose  which  gives  meaning  and  worth  to  everything. 

*  Aen,  2,  777. 


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